To anyone who's taken the plunge and updated to Sequoia, please share your experiences.

In particular, have you experienced any compatibility issues with DAWs, plugins, or any other audio software?

Ideally, list what software/DAWs/plugins you use and what is working fine versus what you're having issues with.

I've upgraded. I haven't gone through everything, but my Presonus 1810c is working along with Logic 11 and various Audio Units on a large project. Slate and Plugin Alliance seem to be working well so far.

I wouldn't be surprised if this OS upgrade is a little less risky for Logic users. Since Logic 11 just released, I bet they took extra caution to make sure it doesn't break.

My RME UCX II and Ableton 11 seems to run fine, and tried TDR Nova VST3. All good so far.

I am on the beta program... on my m2 mac studio everything works better for me than sonoma... in fact a few older intel apps that crashed with sonoma work now. Of course this may all depend on whether you are using the latest and greatest mac but so far so good. Speed tests are also faster with sequoia. I have tested sequoia on digital performer, pro tools, Sibelius, Cubase and dorico with no problems.

Seems fine so far.

Logic and my sessions and plugins haven't shown any problems so far, neither have other non-audio related stuff, but it's only been like half an hour, so a bit early yet..!

Safari seems snappier.

What about the hardware, do the kernel extensions still work?
I think that many are sceptical and are waiting with the update. Unfortunately, there are currently no official statements from most manufacturers such as Steinberg whether the hardware or the DAWs are compatible.

Almost everybody waits for the official release, *then* tests and qualifies their products with that.

Given that the official release has only been out a couple of hours, it's probably unreasonable to expect comprehensive testing and official statements to be already online...

Anyone who is concerned about stability and compatibility on production systems *should not update* at this time, wait for a while for things to shake out and see whether problems are discovered by the community, and for devs to test on the final release version and issue updates if necessary, before even thinking of updating...

Apple macOS Sequoia Audio Compatibility Chart:

https://www.production-expert.com/ap...tibility-chart

macOS Sequoia Compatibility Guide:

https://www.sweetwater.com/sweetcare...-compatibility

Here's the first Sequoia win for me.

View this page you're reading now, and make sure you can see the background ads to the left and the right of the forum.

Click on the icon to the left of the URL in Safari, select "Hide distracting items", and then click on the left ad, and the right ad.

This is *delightful*.

It is entirely reasonable for vendors to participate in operating system betas so that by the time of release they are ready. Or at least know that they are not.

I don't know why the music industry's customers cut them this much slack.

Except that the security issues fixed in the new OS are now known to the world, via the release notes and the CVEs.

%%

Having said that, if you don't want Sequoia right now there also is a Sonoma 14.7-23H124 released today.

What the heck is this? They say nothing specific at all about any audio products. They just repeat press releases about macOS. How is this a "Compatibility Guide"?

You need to scroll to the bottom, there's everything from Ableton to Zynaptiq. You're welcome.

Unless they display something else to you than to me all entries say "No Sequoia information yet.".

All entries don't say "No Sequoia information yet." and the one's that do are the current information until that company has an official statement. It will be updated as that occurs. There are even links for all the company's compatibility webpages.

Yes, and obviously they will update the page as more info comes in, as they do for all macOS releases.

I didn't say they didn't. However, often, due to how much of a moving target often exists in the betas, many just wait for things to stabilise before fully committing to testing, rather than repeating the work redundantly and trying to fix stuff for the betas that doesn't actually need to be fixed.

But, even if they've been testing through the beta phase, they still ultimately wait for the final release before they can properly certify their systems for customers, for good reason.

No one needs to update to a brand new OS version on day one, so this isn't unreasonable, imo. However, some very slow companies can take way too much time before they certify a new OS version, which *is* unreasonable, imo.

Right. Because "They state that compatibility with Sequoia is unverified" is so much better.

It is extremely unlikely that Apple makes a change, publishes it with a beta and is willing to take it back before release. Their reward system just doesn't work like that.

Anyway, the work that needs to happen during beta isn't so much the verification. It is finding out which software changes are required for the new macOS version. And making them.

What does @ uOpt suggest is the better alternative way for brains to understand "YOU SHALL NOT UPDATE AT THIS TIME!" than to check your brands and realise they're not supported yet?
If everyone would do that there'll be no whining in the likes "WHY DOESN'T IT WORK, ALREADY?". OK, maybe I'm hoping for too much there.

I updated one of my Macs. Dabbled around in Bitwig, plugins from izotope, u-he, native instruments, and amplitube. No problems noted.

Also tried some iLok crap. No problems observed.

That's not really how it works. Many of the reasons developers work in this way is precisely because they've been burned in the past. It's just simply not that straightforward much of the time, and developers don't do these things arbitrarily for no reason.

Often things are in a broken state until very late in the beta process, and some features you need to support do not work correctly, or change during the course of the beta while Apple are figuring out a new feature implementation, so any work you do to get it working in the beta ends up being wasted when the behaviour is changed later and you need to re-implement that feature.

Responsible developers *have* to test to the final public release that customers are going to be running - and even if all their work in the beta phase has been solid with no known issues, even then you *still* have to wait for the release before you can verify the behaviour your customers will get...

But it varies - some betas are rougher than others, and it also depends on what underlying changes there are and what affects each developer.

But basically, the best any developer can do is say "We've experienced no known issues with our products in the Sequoia beta phase and don't expect any with the release version", but they will *still* wait until the final release and test with that before issuing an official "We're all good" statement.

Yep, my MOTU 828x still works. Cubase Pro 13/Wavelab 12/Halion 7 are fine too if that's what you were waiting on Steinberg for.. They won't officially say it for a few weeks probably. I ran through all my current projects last night, everything was as it should be. Had to approve some new network permissions to look for devices on the local network for EVERYTHING but aside from that, all is well.

@ mu:zines - DUDE that feature rules haha!!! THANK YOU! I installed it last night, but didnt even notice that icon until you mentioned it hah.

Made me smile indeed!

The question always is - why to "upgrade" ?

(while each such upgrade is mostly just changing some icon colours, some chats change etc

One of the basic rules says: "Never upgrade anything that works"

I seem to have got away with it...

M1 mini running Slate/SSL, izotope, soundtoys, spitfire audio, kazrog, soothe2, sonarworks sound ID etc. Interface is a Clarett 8Pre USB.

All running well, no issues so far.

Hum... I've got an M1 Pro Macbook Pro and use many of the same plugins you've listed there. I'm encouraged.

I upgraded to Sequoia a few days ago, and so far, everything's running smoothly on Logic Pro X and Ableton. No issues with most of my plugins (Native Instruments, FabFilter), but Waves gave me some trouble.

This is due to Safari 18, which is also present on 14.7. I just updated to it (not brave enough for Sequoia yet) and this feature is enabled. Very cool!

Nah. That's just completely false. You have done no true analyses of updates. That's clear. Just because you don't know doesn't mean there isn't other aspects getting changed. Which is to some extent part of the problem discussed, of course, but a lot of it isn't hard to get info on either.

True that!

Sure, but some of us using ad-blockers didn't see these to begin with, so were way ahead of you. Somewhat unimpressed.
Some of us also disabled ad-blocking on gearspace because we want to support the site. You know…